


living for tomorrow (missing today)

by orphan_account



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Gen, M/M, Possible Character Death, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 02:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14607630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Alec is cursed. He says his goodbyes, and the people who love him prepare themselves.





	1. Clary

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP. Going through him telling those he loves about what's to come, and how they handle it both together and apart.

Alec knows something’s wrong when his nose bleeds for the third time on Tuesday. Well, he had known that something was wrong a week before Tuesday, but he starts worrying when blood pours from his nostrils like a faucet.

Last week the usual crew had gone on a (thankfully sanctioned) mission to the Seelie realm in hopes of brokering a new peace with the Queen. The original plan had only seen Alec and Izzy, but once Clary found out there was no stopping her. Like _always _, wherever Clary was, Jace and Simon were not far behind.__

____

____

What was supposed to be a simple mission had Alec on the verge of spearing himself with his own arrows only 30 seconds in. As much as he loves Izzy and Jace, and had grudgingly grown to respect both Simon and Clary, he could not ignore how _childlike _they could sometimes be.__

____

____

“D’ya remember how you called me pretty that one time?” Simon jokes with a smile aimed at Jace. Jace huffs in return.

“I remember mocking you that one time,” Jace tilts his head. “You chose to take it as a compliment. Which, it really wasn’t; I cannot emphasize that enough.” 

Simon doesn’t seem upset in the slightest. To Alec’s confusion, he looks pleased. A moment later Alec comes to the realization that this is their version of friendly banter. He quickly decides that if he hears any more he may vomit.

“Can you two please shut up and focus?” Alec snaps at them in a low voice. “I don’t think I need to remind you of the danger we put ourselves in by entering this realm, or have you forgotten?” He punctuates his question with a raise of his eyebrow. Jace scowls at him, but thankfully shuts his mouth. Simon turns away.

Alec would feel guilty if he wasn’t so wary of this place. His skin crawls with the feeling of hundreds of unfriendly eyes watching him. Glancing at the girls to see what’s keeping them so silent, his jaw drops in shock.

Izzy is walking arm in arm with a Seelie he doesn’t recognize, and Clary is missing. The panic and frustration mould together in his chest as he frantically looks for her distinctive orange hair, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

From his place slightly behind him, he shoots his hand out to grab Jace’s arm. He nearly gets his hand ripped off before Jace realizes who it is. Jace glances back at Alec with a questioning expression, but voices it aloud when he sees Alec’s panicked face.

“What is it, what’s going on?” Jace whispers to him, as if Simon might not hear it from his place directly next to them. Alec waves a frustrated hand behind him, indicating the Clary-less spot next to Izzy. How did he notice her disappearance before Jace of all people?

“Seriously Alec, you just gave Simon and me crap for not focusing and now you’re playing games?” Jace’s tone is incredulous. Which is really not fair, considering he has no idea what Jace is talking about. And then Alec turns around.

Izzy and Clary are walking side by side, talking quietly to each other, and occasionally glancing at the men ahead of them. There is no Seelie with Izzy. Abruptly, Alec’s head starts to spin. This doesn’t make sense, why is everything going to Hell before they’ve even met with the Queen?

Slowing to a stop, Alec tries to figure out what’s going on. It’s becoming increasingly hard to think with the pain in his skull. His hands come up and press lightly against his temples, but he feels no relief.

“Alec, are you okay?” Simon’s worried voice quickly breaks him from his pained state. Alec looks around and sees four worried faces staring at him. The attention makes him uncomfortable.

“Yes, I’m fine. I was just confused for a moment.” He wants to slap himself. This is not the way to divert the attention, so he continues, “I’ve had a headache since early in the day. It’s throwing me off. Jace, can you activate my iratze?” Jace still looks like he doesn’t quite believe him, but he nods in acquiescence. 

After Jace pulls out his stele and activates the rune, the group of five continue to make their way to the Queen. The meeting goes as smoothly as can be expected, and before he knows it he’s back at the Institute.

That was the most recent time Alec had been out in the field. The week following their visit was spent holed up in his office filing reports and making calls, and apparently stemming the blood flowing from his nose.

Alec is once again feeling confused. The Queen hadn’t performed any magic on him that he knew of, and she hadn’t tried to play any games with them either. All in all, it had been a fairly diplomatic meeting. Yet whenever he tries to focus on the events just prior, his head feels like it’s stuffed inside a pressure cooker. 

Normally he tries to avoid the infirmary, but the choice seems to be out of his hands. Even he knows that this bleeding isn’t normal. What he finds out when he eventually makes his way to the large medical room is enough to have him wishing he just stayed in his office.

 

Right now he’s trying to make the hardest decision he has ever had to make. Who will he tell first? How can he tell anyone when it still feels like a dream? When he doesn’t believe it himself?

The decision is out of his hands when Clary walks into the infirmary holding an arm over her ribs. She looks like she’s been training, likely on her own if she needs to come to the infirmary to have her iratze activated.

“Alec? What are you doing here?” She shoots a small frown at Alec when she spots him sitting on a cot, staring blankly at a wall.

He hears her question and knows he has to make a decision quickly. On the one hand, this is a highly personal matter and they’re barely friends. On the other hand, however, it might be easier to tell someone that won’t immediately start crying on him. This could be a practice run.

Making up his mind, Alec slowly moves his eyes to meet Clary’s. She’s still frowning, but it looks politely concerned more than anything. Alec pats his hand on the bed. Clary looks surprised but makes her way over and sits down. Once sitting, she looks at him with full blown worry.

“Why are you in the infirmary, Alec? Does this have anything to do with how weird you were last week?” Alec knows she’s referring to his… episode in the Seelie realm. 

“Yes-or. I’m not sure, actually. That doesn’t matter.” He takes a deep breath and meets her eyes again.

“I’m dying.”

Clary stares at him.

Alec stares back.

She takes both of them by surprise by laughing. Alec feels his eyes widen in surprise. He wasn’t expecting tears, but he also wasn’t expecting this. Clary sees his expression and the smile evaporates from her face.

“You’re joking, right? You can’t be dying. This doesn’t make sense!” Alec swallows and looks away before swinging his eyes back.

“I’m not joking. My nose bled three times today, so I came down here to figure out what was wrong. All we know so far is that it’s a curse. Irreversible.” Alec says this all without inflection, staring into her eyes and willing her to understand. 

I’m dying, he said. And she doesn’t know what to do. She blinks several times and bites her lip. Looks down at her lap and tries to wrap her head around it. Alec, who was possessed by the demon that killed her mother. Alec, who she thought hated her from the very beginning, but who taught her in the field and helped her after her mother died. Alec, who was becoming something akin to a brother to her.

Clary saw the thumb and middle finger on his left hand begin twitching together in an almost snap. She had seen Alec do this before when he was nervous. It was the only sign he felt something about his impending death. She knows what to do.

Alec jumps when her hand grips his. Once again he meets her eyes, and is surprised to see warmth, sadness, and acceptance there. She doesn’t try to convince him that he’s not dying, that there’s something they can do. Clary knows that if that were true, he never would have said those two words in the first place. Not if he felt there was hope.

“I’ll help you. No matter what happens, I’ll be here.” She mimics his words from so long ago with a small smile. For the first time, Alec truly accepts that this is reality. 

I’m dying, he said. But he’s not going to be alone.


	2. Isabelle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec tells Isabelle, and they make some plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! Thanks for the kudos and comments. Just wanted to let you know that the title is from an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Concrit is very welcome.

After leaving Clary to get patched up in the infirmary, Alec walks to Isabelle’s room. He’s dreading this conversation, can see her big eyes watering and hear her yelling at him for giving up too soon. There has to be a way to fix this, he can hear her saying. 

Of all the people he considers important in his life, Isabelle might be the most vital. He can’t compare the love he has for her with anyone else, because it’s no contest, he loves them all the same. But he would be dead a million times over without her, and he knows that.

Alec raps on her door softly and she calls out a cheerful “Come in!”. His eyes fall shut without his permission as he pushes down the surge of emotion her bright voice wells within him. How can he be the one to dim that light? For a moment he considers backing away and pretending he never knocked, but he knows he has to tell her. Hopefully it will be better coming from him than Clary blurting it out accidentally.

Isabelle looks up as he comes in and she immediately clocks his posture. He’s hunching in that way he does when he has something to say but doesn’t want to say it. Her eyes narrow as she tries to figure out what it could be.

His face is downcast, his shoulders slumped, and his jaw is tense. So it’s bad news. But he isn’t panicking so no one has died, and he isn’t freaking out which means there’s not an attack taking place. She wonders for a moment if maybe something happened with Magnus, because her brother seems just as upset now as he was after the Soul Sword debacle. 

After a few moments have passed she begins to rise from the bed, but his hand makes a cutting motion before she can stand. Alec walks over and sits beside her, and it’s so similar to how he sat with Clary. But this- this is different. This is his baby sister, and his heart is in his throat suddenly, threatening to choke him before he can get the words out.

“Alec?” Izzy’s uncharacteristically gentle voice washes over him. Her face is worried, but not frightened, never frightened. “Is everything… okay?” She asks hesitantly, and it’s too much.

His jaw trembles, his lower lip quivers, and before he knows it he has tears filling his eyes. They close for a moment and he tries to will them away, but Izzy sees. She always sees.

“Alec, you’re scaring me. Please, what’s wrong? You know you can tell me anything.” She’s pleading, and it’s so unlike her that he has to meet her eye. Slowly, he starts to tell her what’s happening.

“Last week, when we went to visit the Seelie Queen,” Alec stops, unsure of how to continue. He takes a deep breath and just goes for it, “I was cursed. I- I don’t know exactly when, but I think it was on our way to meet her. It’s all kind of- blurry.” And he’s not making sense, he can tell by the confusion marring Isabelle’s face.

“Do you need help finding the counter-curse?” But why would he be on the verge of tears if that’s what he was here for? Her brain had all the pieces of the puzzle but she wouldn’t let herself put it together. 

“No, that’s, um. That’s why I’m here. There is no counter-curse.” Alec stutters out, and even though she expected it, knew it in her bones, she can’t stand to hear it. 

Izzy is up from the bed like a shot, glaring down at him. Although it would usually be an angry expression, now she just looks desperate. Desperate for him to be lying, or joking, or wrong, even though it’s unlike Alec to be any of those. 

“You’re just giving up? You just said you don’t even know what’s really wrong, how can you know there’s no counter-curse!” Alec grips her wrist and tries to bring her back to the bed, but she crosses her arms defiantly.

He sighs and lets his hands drop to his lap. “I said I don’t know how it happened. But the curse isn’t new. Well, it’s new to me. I mean-” He sucks his teeth, irritated with himself. “This curse has been seen before. No one has ever been able to cure it, from what we know. It’s… fatal.” Alec finishes with a sigh. Thankfully, the tears have abated.

They come back full force when he looks at his sister. Her arms have dropped from their defensive position across her chest and now she looks horrified. Alec jumps to his feet and he wraps her in his arms. 

Isabelle, who hadn’t cried even while going through withdrawal, is soaking his shirt with her tears. His own fall quietly down his face and drip off his chin into her dark hair. 

She mumbles into his chest, “You can’t just go. Not you, I can’t do this without you. This isn’t fair!” And now she’s sobbing, her fists bunched in his t-shirt. Gently, he grabs her shoulders and pulls her away to look at her. A fresh round of tears spring to her eyes when she sees his tear-streaked face. 

“You can do this without me, Iz. You’re the strongest woman- no, the strongest person I know. And I need you to be strong, because I’m going to ask you to do something for me.” He clears his throat, “One of the responsibilities of the Head of the Institute is to pick their successor-”

“No. No! Don’t-you can’t- No.” She cuts him off with a shake of her head. The tears are clearing up and she’s starting to look angry again. “How can you ask me to-to replace you? To forget about you? Alec, I’m not as strong as you think I am. I was addicted to vampire venom for Raziel’s sake!” By now they’re standing slightly apart, no longer hugging. 

“You overcame that. You saved me that night, but you also saved yourself.” Isabelle looks like she’s ready to deny it, but he quickly speaks. “Listen, you are the only person I trust to do what needs to be done for the Institute. For the Downworld Cabinet. There’s no one else who’ll keep fighting for change in the Shadow World, in the Clave. And we both saw how unfit Jace was for the job. Please, Izzy.” 

She turns away from him and he’s not sure what to do. Alec had made peace with his inevitable demise long ago, knowing that shadowhunters die young. But now he has unfinished business, things he cares about and people he wants protected long after he’s gone. If she refuses, he’s not sure what to do. Sure, Lydia is a great leader, but he doesn’t trust that she wouldn’t give up the Downworld Cabinet when the Clave puts too much pressure on her. Isabelle really is the only one that he can trust with this.

Carefully, she turns back to face him. Her lips are pursed but her eyes are hard and he’s flooded with relief. Alec know what she’s going to say before the words leave her mouth, but it’s still a relief to hear them.

“I’ll do it. When you- when it’s time, I’ll take over. But only if you promise me one thing.” Alec nods, he knows he’ll do anything she asks of him right now.

“Don’t give up. Keep searching for a counter-curse. Go back to the Seelies, go see Magnus, do what you have to, but try to find a way. If there truly is no cure, I’ll formally accept your request.” 

Alec nods once more, and then freezes. The words go see Magnus are playing in his head like a loop. He just got Magnus back, how is he going to tell him that he’s losing him already?


End file.
